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New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu has released his wish list for the current session of the State Legislature. Items requested by City Hall include a tax increase for public safety and a more aggressive approach to clearing blighted property.

The 1939 Charity Hospital building served the healthcare needs of generations of the city’s poor. However, its basement flooded during hurricane Katrina, and for the past eight years the building has remained vacant.

WWNO’s Listening Post collected audio from its two regular recording locations — at Norman Mayer Library in Gentilly and HeadQuarters Barbershop on Broad Street — to hear what people had to say about the redevelopment of Charity Hospital and the surrounding area. The Listening Post asked people these questions:

Mayor Mitch Landrieu applied for $100 million in state construction funds on Friday to redevelop the former Charity Hospital building. Renovating the building would cost around $300 million, and revitalize a moribund stretch of downtown.

It is highly unlikely that Governor Bobby Jindal and state legislators will give Mayor Landrieu the full $100 million next year. He asked for $100 million this year as well. He got $13 million.

Developer Pres Kabacoff says he is a man on a mission to transform downtown. If the city center can be revitalized, he says, and the river can be connected to the lake, it would transform the entire city of New Orleans.